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= 0. Thus, when the poles of G(s)are farfrom s = 0, the magnitude

j Q s : is large and the asymptotic expansion of F( jnsf) is given by

An Optimized Polarization Sensitive Salisbury Screen

FRANK E. GROSS AND ERIC J. KUSTER

Abstruct-A transmissionlineequivalentcircuitmodel
for strip
gratings is used to determine the performance of both conducting and
resistive gratings. A polarization sensitive Salisbury screenis designed in
which the space cloth is replaced by a resistive grating and the ground
plane is replaced by a parallel conducting grating. The new Salisbury
screen performs like the traditional screen for anincident E-field parallel
to the strips, but is transparent for the perpendicular polarization.

Substituting (24) into (23) yields

which is the correct expression for thecase when g ( z ) does not have
any poles near zs.

IV. CONCLUSION
Two complete uniform asymptotic expansions (for large 0)of the
integral shownin (l), obtained by two different methods, were
compared. It was shown that both expansions are exactly the same
(term by term). It was also observed that the uniform asymptotic
solutions given in [6] (multiple pole singularities) and in [4, eq.
(4.4.16)] (one pole singularity) are applicable for the general case
where the pole@) of g ( z ) cross theSDP path anywhere in the z-plane.
Obviously, the generalization of Felsens result [4] to multiple pole
singularities is still valid forthe generalcase described above.
Furthermore, for the special case when all the poles of g ( z ) are far
from the saddle point, the transition function F ( x ) was replaced by its
own asymptotic series for large 1x1. As expected, the asymptotic
series in (25) is the same as the one obtained by Felsen [4] when g ( z )
is regular near the saddle point.
REFERENCES

I. INTRODUCTION
Salisbury screens are well-known devices for absorbing plane
waves at a design frequency.The traditional Salisbury screenis
polarization insensitive at normal incidence. By replacing the 377 $2
space cloth by a resistive strip grating and replacing the ground plane
by a conducting stripgrating, an optimized screen can be made
transparent for ( E perpendicular to the strips) and still perform as a
Salisbury screen for (E parallel to the strips). The optimization and
solutions will be accomplished by treatingthe Salisbury screen
components as shunt elements in a transmission line model.

n. THEORY
Thestrip grating geometry is depicted in Fig. 1. Thegeneral
subject of strip gratings is adequately treated by Larsen [I] and Lamb
[2]and thus will not be expounded on here. The gratings can be
modeled as transmission line shunt elements and the model can be
used to optimize grating performance. The transverse electric (E)
mode is when E is polarized parallel to the strips, the transverse
magnetic (TM) mode is when E is polarized perpendicular to the
strips.

N. Bleistein, Uniform asymptotic expansions of integrals with many

nearby stationary points and algebraic singularities, J. Marh. Mech.,

A . Strip Grating Equivalent Circuits

vol. 17, pp. 533-559,1967.

A. Erdelyi, Asymptotic Expansions. New York: Dover, 1956, ch.
2.
E. L. Van der Waerden, On the method of saddle points, Appl. Sci.
Res., B2, pp. 3 3 4 5 , 1951.
L. E. Felsen and N. Marcuvitz, RadiationandScattering
of
Wava. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973, ch. 4.
P. C. Clemmow, Some extensions to the methodofintegrationby
steepest descents, Quart. J. Mech. Appl. Math.. vol. 3, pp. 241256, 1950.
C. Gennarelli and L. Pdumbo, A uniform asymptotic expansion of a
typical diffraction integral with many coalescing simple pole singularities and a first-order saddle point, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-32, pp. 1122-1124, Oct. 1984.
D.L. Hutchins and R. G . Kouyoumjian, Asymptotic series describing
the diffraction of a planewave by a wedge, Ohio State Univ.
ElectroSci. Lab., Techn. Rep. 2183-3, Dec. 1969.
J. Boersmaand Y. Rahmat-Samii, Comparison of two leading
uniform theories of edge diffraction with the exact uniform asymptotic
solution, Radio Sci., vol. 15, pp. 1179-1194, Nov.-Dec. 1980.
E. L. Yip and R. J . Chiavetta, Comparison of uniform asymptotic
expansions of diffraction integrals, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., to appear.
J. L. Volakis and M. I. Herman, A uniform asymptotic evaluation of
integrals, Proc. IEEE, vol. 74, pp. 1043-1@44,July 1986.
R. G . Kouyoumjian and P. H. Pathak, A uniform geometrical theory
of diffraction for an edge in a perfectly conducting surface, Proc.
IEEE, V O ~ . 62, pp. 148-1441, 1974.
R. Tiberio and G. Pelosi, High-frequency scattering from the edges of
impedance dscontinuities on a flat plane, IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagut., vol. 31, pp. 590-596, July 1983.
R. G. Rojas, A uniform GTD analysis of the EM diffraction by a thin
dielectric/ferrite half-plane and related configurations, Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State Univ., 1985.

The strip grating has an effective impedance for each mode (TE or
TM). Thus a grating in free space can be modelled by a transmission
2.The equivalent
line with a shunt impedance as seeninFig.
impedance for the grating at oblique incidence can be derived from
the works of Marcuvitz [3], Redheffer [4], and Ram0 [5]. Marcuvitz
derived the shunt reactance for a grating atnormal incidence and for a
limited range of parameters at oblique incidence. Redheffer demonstrated the angular dependance of the
shunt reactance, and Ram0
showed the form of the shunt resistance for round wires when the skin
depth is greater than the radius. The shunt impedance is given
below for the TM and TE cases.

TM Case
Z , = ( R+j X , ) sec 0
where the reactance is given by [3]

($)-I=?

I n sec

*+1 +QQsin4 \k \kcos4

Manuscript received Februav 6, 1987; revised June 24, 1987.

F. B. Gross is with The MITRE Corporation, Burlington Road, Bedford,
MA 01730.
E. J. Kuster is with Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332.
IEEE Log Number 8717286.

0018-926X187/1200-1492$01.00

0 1988 IEEE

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The result is

0 a 0 0 0-

4wl+

r=-. - 2 0

When 2, is substituted into (6) for the TE case with arbitrary R,, the
results agree well with Hall and Mittra [6] at various angles of
incidence.

Side View

B. Optimizing Strip Gratings

TE

Top View

Fig. 1.

(6)

2 0 + 22,

Strip grating geometry; w = strip width, d = gratingconstant.

The strips will be optimized for the application of a polarization

sensitive Salisbury screen. The resistivegrating will replace the
traditional 377 Ci space cloth and the conducting grating will replace
the traditional ground plane. The optimization will be performed at
normal incidence.
Conducting Grating: To optimize the strip parameters, we first
consider the conducting grating alone. The power reflection coefficient at normal incidence is calculated by substituting the first-order
approximation for (1) and (4) into (6). The first-order approximation
retains only the first term in (2) and (5). (This results in an error of
less than 10 percent when d/X 5 0.5. This greatly simplifies the
optimization and yields very satisfactory results.)

,w\\\

Fig. 2. Strip gratingequivalentcircuit.

with

with

Q=

41 -(d/X)2

-1

RII reflection coefficient for E parallel to thestrips (TE case)

Rl reflection coefficient for E perpendicular to the strips (TM
case).

Z = impedance of medium.
The resistance is given by
(3)

The above reflection coefficients are plotted for various values of w/

d i n Figs. 3 and 4. It can be seen that for a proper selection of w/d,
the grating can be a good conductor to the TE mode while being
nearly transparent to the TM mode.
The conducting grating can be optimized by defining the following:

with
t

S
u
R,

thickness of strip
skin depth ofstrip
conductivity of strip
impedance ofstrip.

Rn= 1 - A

(9)

RL = A

(10)

and

where
A is an arbitrarily small parameter.

(2)=t

[In csc

This condition, after some algebraic manipulation, can be satisfied

when w/d = 0.5. For a given d/X, w/d = 0.5 insures themaximum
RIIand the minimum R I . Substituting this result into (4),we derive a
condition on d/ X such that

*+1 +QQws4
f
sin4 f
+

$)2

(1 - 3 sin2 9)cos4 f

(5)

Also, R is the same as for the TM case.

free space, the reflection
When the grid or strip gratingisin
coefficient for TE or TMincidence, can be calculated by calculating
the reflection coefficient for the equivalent transmission line model.

-,

We thus can determine the grid performanceby the parameter A. As

anexamplelet R L = -20 dB then A = 0.01 and d/ X = 0.145
yielding RII = - 0.04 dB. R Hand Tl for the optimized conducting

. --

.,

..

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-35, NO. 12, DECEMBER 1987

0.00

--r

-0.20

2 -0.40 -

u
a

-0.60

k
4

w
E
8

.6

.4

.2

.8

-0.80 -

1.0

W D
Fig. 3. Reflection coefficient for E pallel to the conducting strips.

-1.00

"

'

"

"

"

"

'

"

"

"

15

10

20

FREQUENCY (GHz)
Fig. 5. A, and T , forconducting ships: w/d = 0.5, d = 7.5 mm.

~
-10

-28

R(dBB)

-9.20

-48

.2

.4

.8

.6

.e

w/D

Fig. 4. Reflection coefficient for E perpendicular to the conducting saips.

grating versus frequency are plotted in Fig. 5. R I I= TI when w/d

= 0.5.

Resistive Grating: The resistive grating will replace the traditional

space cloth and shouldbe 377 Q for the TE case, but should look like
an opencircuit to the TM case. Thus, to optimize the resistive
grating, the criteria are
1) Zg ( T M ) = j m

----

-lo.ooo

(12)

10

z
a

20-1

15

.oo

FREQUENCY (GHz)

Fig. 6. A, and T, for'resistivestrips: w / d

0.352,d = 4.65 mm.

TABLE I
OPTIMIZED STRIP GRATING FORPOLARIZATION SENSITIVE SALISBURY

1 1

SCREEN

2) Zg (TE) = Zo.

-0.20

-30

58

----__----__----_---_-.-_

Type

Conducting grating
Resistive grating

<: .

,5wid

.352

.155

Using the first-order approximation for (1) and (4) at normd

incidence, we have

Z,(T")=R+JX,=R-j

AZO
?TW

(131

4d In sec 2d
Z E ( T E ) = R + J X L = R + jdZ0
-lncsc-. TW
h
2d

(14)

Both conditions in (12) cannot be satisfied siinultaneously (unless d/

X = 0). The best compromise is when R = Zo and the imaginary
terms for (13) and (14) are at least 10 Zoand 0.1 Z, respectively.
This is accomplished when d / X I 0.155 and when

RESISTIVE
GRATING

Fig. 7 . Optimized polarization sensitive Salisbury screen: conducting grating-w/d = 0.5,d = 7.5 mm, resistive grating-w/d = 0.352, d = 4.65.

Equation (15) results in w / d = 0.352. R U and TL for the

optimized resistive grating are plotted in Fig. 6. The optimized strip
grating coefficients are given in Table I.
Optimized Salisbury Screen: The Salisbury screen composed of
the optimized polarizing strips is depicted in Fig. 7. The optimization

assumes that the coupling between the conducting and resistive

gratings is negligible. It can be shown that for a separation between
gratings of xo/4 the lowest order Floquet modes are evanescent and
small. Thus, the no coupling assumption is valid for this application.
The reflection and transmission coefficients for the optimized screen

tion data were gatheredover arange of elevation angles from1"to 21".A

total of three sets of measurments were made in the spring, summer, and
winter. These allowed comparisonsto be made of the seasonal characteristicsof low anglefadingin
thearctic.Theexperimentaldatawere
examined with respect to the atmospheric conditions observed at Alert.
The results presentedinclude the variation of the median signal level with
the elevation angle, cumulative distributions of the received signal level
and fade rate statistics. The amount ofsignal fading increased rapidly as
the elevation angle decreased. Fadingwas most severe in thesummer
which also had the highest fade rates. Very little fading was observed in
the winter.

INTRODUCTION
1

-25 -

FREQUENCY (GHz)
Fig. 8. Reflection and transmission for the optimized polarization sensitive
Salisbury screen.

are plotted in Fig. 8 with the ideal Salisbury screen results

superimposed. The absorption for the TE modeatthe
design
frequency is - 45.2 dB while the insertion loss for the TM mode is
merely - 0.23 dB. Thus, the Salisbury screen isvery effective for the
purpose for which it is designed.
El. CONCLUSION

The Salisbury screencan

be made polarization sensitive by
replacing the 377 Q space cloth by a resistive strip grating and by
replacing the ground plane by a parallel conducting grating. The
gratings can be optimized to absorb TE incident waves but be nearly
transparent to TMincident waves. The overall performance is
limited
by the grating constant d / X .
REFERENCES

T. Larsen, "A surveyofthe

theory of wire grids," IRE Trans.
Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-12, pp. 191-201,May 1962.
H. Lamb, "On the reflection and transmission of electric waves by a
metallic grating," Proc. London Math. Soc., vol. 29, p p . 523-544,
1898.
N. Marcuvitz, Waveguide Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1951.
R. Redheffer, "The dependenceof reflection on incidenceangle," IRE
Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., pp. 423429, Oct. 1959.
S. Ram0 et ai., Fields and Waves in Communication Electronics,
2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1984, pp.181-182.
R. Hall and R. Mittra, "Scattering from a periodic array of resistive
strips,'' IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-33, no. 9, pp.
1009-101 1, Sept. 1985.

Low Angle Signal Fading at 38 GHz in the High Arctic

W. I. LAM

Abstract-In 1984 a microwave propagation experiment wasconducted

at 83'N latitude in Alert, Canada, to study the characteristics of low
angle fading at a frequency of 38 GHz. By monitoring the continuous
wave (CW) signal transmitted from the orbiting LIB-8 satellite, propagaManuscript received January 23, 1987; revised May 19, 1987.
The author is with the Department of Communications, Communications
Research Centre. Government of Canada, 3701 Carling Avenue, P.O. Box
11490, Station H, Ottawa, ON, K2H 8S2 Canada.
IEEE Log Number 8717291.

As the elevation angle ofa satellite-earth path decreases, theeffects

of tropospheric fading become increasingly severe. The use of low
angle propagation paths is necessary, however, if coverage of high
latitude locations via geostationary satellites is to be achieved.
The low angle fading of 4 and 6 GHz signals has been studied at
Eureka (latitude 80"N, elevation angle 1") using the Anik A satellite
[ 11. Measurementshave also been madeat Resolute (75"N) and
Ottawa (45%) for a frequency of 7.3 GHz [2]-[4]. These measurements indicate that there is less fading in the arcticthan at midlatitude
locations, and that the fading is more severe in the summer
than in the
winter. An experiment performedat Spitzbergen (78"N) for 11.8
GHz also gave similar results [5]. At millimeter wave frequencies
measurements of low angle fading have been made in Newfoundland
[6], Virginia [7], and Texas [8] using the ATS-6 satellite but none
have been reported for arctic locations.
During 1984 a series of measurements was made of the strength of
a 38 GHz signal that was transmitted from the Lincoln Experimental
Satellite (LES-8) and received at Alert, NWT. This communication
summarizes the results of that experiment.

a. DE~CRIPTION
OF EXPERIMENT
A circularly polarized 38 GHz continuous wave (CW) signal is
transmitted from LES-8. The satellite follows an orbit which is
inclined at 23" relative to the earth's equatorial plane and the orbital
period is 24 h. When observed from earth, the path of the satellite
forms a figure eight pattern in the sky.
The measurements were made with a receiver at Alert (82"30'N,
62"20'W) on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, Canada, approximately 850 km from the northpole. At a latitude of 82"N the satellite
is accessible for approximately 11 h per day since only the upper half
of its figure eight path is visible. During each pass the satellite rises
from below the horizon to a maximum elevation angle of 21" and
then sets back below the horizon. While the satellite is above the
horizon its azimuth angle varies over a range of 6". The physical
horizon for the receiver is atan elevation angleof about 1 because of
blockage by hills along the path.
The receiving system was equipped with a 0.45 m diameter
Cassegrain antenna which had a gain of 42 dBand a 3 dB beamwidth
of 1.2". The antenna was mounted on a steerable pedestal which had
a pointing resolution of better than 0.05". A preprogrammed tracking
method was used to point the receiving antenna toward the satellite. For
each day the elevation and azimuth angles at 10 min intervals were
calculated from the satellite orbital elements and stored on magnetic
tape. To control the antenna pointing, these values were used every
few seconds by a computer to calculate the look angles by linear
interpolation. Finally, accurate pointing was ensured by entering fine
adjustments into the computer to maximize the received signal.
A steerable spot-beam antenna was used on the satellite to transmit
the 38 GHz signal toward earth. Although pointing errors of this